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We are only beginning to feel the impacts of the coronavirus. Still, we know that the communities we serve — including low-income people, people of color, and immigrants — are already among the most affected.
As restaurants and businesses across the country are shutting their doors, more and more people are suddenly without paychecks. Families may not be able to put food on their tables. School closures are affecting millions of children who may go hungry without free and reduced-price school meals. And people who are sick may be afraid to seek treatment because they are among the 27.5 million in the United States who do not have health coverage.
Our work, and the work of partner organizations, is needed now more than ever. This week, we joined hundreds of organizations from across the country to demand that local, state and federal officials safeguard families and people who may be most impacted by the crisis and establish protocols to help keep them safe and healthy.
Some of our work includes:
- We worked to ensure that the federal response to the coronavirus pandemic addresses the needs of people and families in the South and that no one is left out at this crucial time. We were among hundreds of organizations that demanded that the U.S. Senate pass the Families First Coronavirus Act. Late on Wednesday, President Trump signed the bill that provides workers with paid sick days and emergency leave, helping them and their employers slow the spread of COVID-19.
The Families First Coronavirus Act also provides needed funding to states for nutrition programs and Medicaid, expands unemployment insurance for people facing illness-related job loss and increases access to testing and health care for people who have or may have COVID-19. The bill doesn’t do everything people need and it doesn’t cover everyone that it should. We will continue our advocacy efforts to ensure that Congress fills these gaps and that additional funding will go to support communities in need.
- We partnered with dozens of organizations to call on state officials in Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida to ensure that the health and safety of people in jails and prisons — where they do not have the freedom to practice social distancing — in the Deep South are being protected from the virus, and release those people most at risk of suffering from serious complications or death.
In a series of letters to Alabama, Mississippi and Florida officials, the coalition of civil rights and social justice organizations called on states to immediately develop evidence-based protocols and proactively plan the prevention and management of a coronavirus outbreak.
The coalitions also asked that the states comply with national public health care guidelines, educate both staff and the people detained in state and federal facilities on the dangers of the virus and how to avoid contracting it, keep infected staff out of facilities and isolate individuals who have tested positive, avoid lockdowns, regularly screen and test all individuals in the facility and those who work there, ensure free and accessible phone communication with family members and confidential access to legal counsel, and release elderly people and others who are at a high risk.
- The SPLC’s Southeast Immigrant Freedom Initiative team members remain at the frontlines, working alongside asylum seekers and immigrants to achieve justice in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention centers and courtrooms.
We collaborated with the Americans for Immigrant Justice, Project South and Asian Americans Advancing Justice to ask that facilities run by private prisons under ICE supervision in Florida, Louisiana and Georgia disclose all of the protocols that are being used to prevent the spread of the coronavirus and grant release of all individuals who are at high risk of serious effects from the virus.
In a letter to ICE, we argued that “this is a public health emergency” and called for the immediate end of all facility-to-facility transfers to prevent the spread of the virus, tests of the current population in ICE custody and all people entering ICE custody exhibiting symptoms or risk factors, provide proper hygienic supplies at all detention and check-in facilities, and allow legal workers visiting detained people to bring gloves and disinfecting wipes into visitation rooms.
Team members are reporting dangerous conditions at detention facilities, including at Pine Prairie in Louisiana, where there is a lack of soap and hand sanitizer for the people detained there. The pandemic has greatly complicated the immigration court system as well. With unclear directive from the Executive Office for Immigration Review, the decision to close courts has been left to individual judges. This inconsistency contradicts the recommendations of public health experts and puts immigrants, their families, attorneys and immigration judges at risk.
- We joined nearly 600 organizations to call on governors, mayors, utility regulators, rural electric cooperative, public power and water utility boards to take steps to implement a moratorium on all electricity and water utility shut-offs, waiver of all late-payment charges, and reinstitution of any services that have already been cut off due to nonpayment.
We further urged implementation of policies that promote clean energy systems and that establish percentage-of-income payment plans for water and other utility services, which enhance the long-term energy and climate resilience for all low-income families, communities and tribes across the country.
While the COVID-19 health crisis continues to unfold, we are seeing legislators across the country pushing through bills when they think no one is looking, including the Idaho Legislature that this week sent a bill banning transgender youth from participating in sports to Gov. Brad Little for signing. We joined dozens of organizations to call on Little to veto the bill, which would be the first ban of its kind in the country.
This week, we also released the 2019 Year in Hate and Extremism report, which found that active hate groups operating across the United States have remained at high levels — 940 in 2019. Our investigators found that the number of white nationalist hate groups rose for the second straight year — representing a 55% increase since 2017. We also found a 43% increase in the number of anti-LGBTQ hate groups — the fastest-growing sector of hate.
This is just a snapshot of our work as the SPLC’s staff continues to telework. As we take greater precautions during this time, we are more committed than ever to fight alongside the communities we serve and partner organizations to ensure equal access to justice.
We are stronger working together.
The Editors
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